Crisis Time for the Warriors

Considering the fractured nature of the team, it’s amazing the Warriors play as hard as they do. Squabbles and controversy are a given for any team sinking far below expectations, but the Warriors continue to hustle and entertain. Perhaps it’s because when you think about it, these late-season games amount to a series of auditions. Outside of Andris Biedrins and Stephen Jackson, nobody on this team has a set, rock-solid role.

It all leads to nowhere, of course. As currently constituted, the Warriors are doomed to second-rate status with a front office apparently allergic to accountability. Who runs this show? Sorry, too much paranoia. Could be Don Nelson, or Robert Rowell, or Larry Riley, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. You’d rank Chris Mullin, merely the face of the executive branch, well down the list.

Solving this crisis will be a bit like the economy, a long and deliberate process that does not allow for mistakes, and Monta Ellis is the first order of business. When is someone, anyone going to realize that he is not a point guard? Nelson seems intent on playing Ellis there the rest of the season, and Ellis claims that’s been his position all year (you basically can’t trust anything the immature Ellis says at any time, but that’s another story). What does a point guard look like? Not Ellis. Try Deron Williams, who laid waste to the Warriors recently, or Chris Paul. Someone like Andre Miller or Kirk Hinrich, both of whom will be available this summer, would be a vast improvement. But the Warriors need to gauge Ellis’ state of mind and make a commitment to him as the 2-guard, no questions asked, for the future.

That won’t be as easy as it sounds. Ellis still thinks the team is out to screw him, contractually, and that is a plausible theory until Rowell announces that there will be no more punishment over Ellis’ unfortunate moped incident. Ellis also has to get on the same page with Nelson, realize that Nelson’s up-tempo system is a godsend for his style of play. If the Warriors can clear Ellis’ mind going into the off-season, then they’ve got their 2-guard. I’ve seen reports suggesting Ellis has never shown his old form on the court, but that’s ridiculous. He’s done so many times, those bursts of speed, explosiveness and elevation so reminiscent of last season. A relaxed, stress-free off-season should bring him back in top form.

Once you’ve established Ellis as the 2-guard, you let Jamal Crawford walk, exercising the opt-out option in his contract. Forget what Nelson wants; Crawford needs to take this route for his own good. He might make a bit less money, but for all his faults, he’s a first-rate scorer who loves to take the big shot, and should be starting somewhere in the league. He’s not a point guard, ever, under any circumstances. So he can’t stick around Oakland, trying to weave his way through the maze of shooters/not point guards/not really forwards.

Were these two things to happen, the Warriors would have their 2-guard, once and for all, with plenty of outside-shooting help coming off the bench. Roles would be more clearly defined. As for the glaring needs for a point guard and power forward, those are issues for another day. The Warriors have a great big mess in their living room, and they need to clean that up first.

3-DOTTING: It still seems inconceivable, even for the Warriors, that they extended Jackson’s contract three seasons to last through 2013. Jackson is a hell of a player, but he’s hardly a young man, and with so many long-term contracts weighing down their salary cap — and severely handicapping their chances to land a big free agent — they simply didn’t need to do this. The contract makes Jackson difficult, but not impossible, to trade. Matt Steinmetz ran down four possible options in his blog — New Orleans, San Antonio, Dallas and Houston — and it’s easy to see all of those teams improving with Jackson. He certainly isn’t the same player as he was alongside Baron Davis. Jackson has too many responsibilities now, when he should be concentrating on defense, leadership and the occasional scoring burst (when he’s hot, and when he’s open). He shouldn’t be handling the ball, throwing inbounds passes or pulling up for 3-pointers with 17 seconds left on the shot clock . . . Things are finally starting to make sense in Detroit, although nobody expects the Pistons to win more than one playoff series after a season of discord. Rip Hamilton is back in the starting lineup, where he belongs, and Allen Iverson‘s back injury (keeping him out another week or so) turned out to be a blessing. Perhaps afraid to anger Iverson, and knowing that Hamilton is a true team player, the Pistons had Iverson as a starter for far too long. They should have listened to Chris Webber, who pointed out in the TNT studio that the Pistons have too many scoring options — Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace and Tayshaun Prince, just for starters — for Iverson to fit in. Webber passionately argued that Iverson simply won’t give up the ball — and never has — and that he would only fit as a dominant scorer with the second unit. Now people are theorizing that Iverson is so insulted, he’ll just cash in the season under the guise of lingering back problems. That can’t be right. Iverson might sulk as a bench guy, but he has a ton of competitive pride, and as a potential free agent, he’s playing for his net contract . . . Whether it’s his fragility, his demeanor or his game, Greg Oden is coming under serious scrutiny in Portland. Of all places, Oden wound up in the city where Bill Walton‘s injuries curtailed his career and where another center, Sam Bowie, was a lamentable first-round pick (ahead of Michael Jordan). Even when healthy, Oden hasn’t lived up to expectations as an influential center. That could change; some big men need a lot of time to develop. A greater concern is Oden’s eternally downcast mood. He wants so badly to succeed, and he’s highly sensitive to skepticism, whether coming from the press or teammates. The Blazers have essentially set up a separate set of rules for Oden (including special access to owner Paul Allen‘s personal bedroom at the back of the team plane), and there is growing concern that Oden won’t play through his injuries, that a player of more character would be gutting it out. Oden’s latest injury is a chipped left kneecap, which seems serious enough to hinder any player’s effectiveness, but the team made the mistake of consistently listing him as “day-to-day,” raising skepticism throughout the organization. The bottom line is that the Blazers are a young, exciting, highly aggressive team that might prefer to attack the playoffs without Oden — at least this year — and start fresh with him next fall.

I’ve never been a fan of Drew Gooden, but I seem to be in the minority about his move to San Antonio. A lot of NBA insiders feel that’s a huge move for the Spurs and their playoff chances . . . Similarly, how much more is Joe Smith going to give Cleveland than he did last year, before getting traded? Coach Mike Brown admits that Smith’s biggest asset is his character in the locker room, which is great, but Smith has never been one to make a huge postseason impact . . . In an age where the good teams have a knack of winning on the road, the last 15 Cleveland-Boston matchups have gone to the home team. Most regular-season developments tend to be forgotten at playoff time, but the Celtics really shut down LeBron James in Boston the other day, making a concerted effort to have at least two players preoccupied with him at all times, and they did it without Kevin Garnett . . . Shaquille O’Neal went a bit overboard in his criticism of Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy (after Van Gundy called him a flopper), although he did get off one good line: “Van Gundy reminds me of a broke navigational system. He knows everything about everything but he ain’t never been nowhere.” Shaq’s little tiff with Chris Bosh was another story. Bosh complained that the refs give Shaq too much leeway in the paint, refusing to call three seconds, and Shaq said he could hardly acknowledge any criticism from “the RuPaul [a noted drag queen] of big men.” Bosh quietly responded that he “didn’t laugh,” and good for him. It wasn’t funny.